Elmwood Cafe After a 2015 controversy involving Bay Area comedian W. Kamau Bell was reignited amid a national outcry following the arrest of two black men at Philadelphia Starbucks, the Berkeley cafe closed ... more

Elmwood Cafe
After a 2015 controversy involving Bay Area comedian W. Kamau Bell was reignited amid a national outcry following the arrest of two black men at Philadelphia Starbucks, the Berkeley cafe closed its doors in April. less

Crystal Jade Jiang Nan, the 4-year-old Cantonese restaurant in the Embarcadero Four building, is closing to the public on June 30.

The restaurant’s opening in November 2014 made a splash in San Francisco, and not just because of the $14 million renovation of the 20,000-square-foot space. Owned by L Catterton Asia, an affiliate of the private equity branch of LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), the Singapore-based Crystal Jade Culinary Concepts group operates more than 130 restaurants in 13 countries. The San Francisco location was the group’s first in the United States.

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Spokesman Sam Singer said that the initial problems had subsided and called Crystal Jade’s run “successful.” Singer said that another restaurant group, which he declined to name, approached Crystal Jade to take over the lease and turn it into another restaurant.

“The sale of this asset allows us to pursue other expansion plans on the west and east coasts,” Singer says. “We’re even looking at the possibility of opening another restaurant in San Francisco as well.”

On June 14, Crystal Jade filed a 60-day Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification announcement with the state of California announcing that it would close and lay off its 77 employees.

Singer says many may be retained by the new owner.

It has stopped taking reservations on OpenTable, and will only open for private events through the month of July.

Singer says he anticipates that the new owners will want to close to make aesthetic changes before reopening under a new name and possibly a new culinary direction, but he would not specify what those changes would be.

Jonathan Kauffman has been writing about food for The Chronicle since the spring of 2014. He focuses on the intersection of food and culture — whether that be profiling chefs, tracking new trends in nonwestern cuisines, or examining the impact of technology on the way we eat.

After cooking for a number of years in Minnesota and San Francisco, Kauffman left the kitchen to become a journalist. He reviewed restaurants for 11 years in the Bay Area and Seattle (East Bay Express, Seattle Weekly, SF Weekly) before abandoning criticism in order to tell the stories behind the food. His first book, “Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat,” was published in 2018.